Written during the Wisdom of EveryDay Life sessions at the Shambhala Centre, Halifax with Bob and Linda.

Is Poetry Political?

Thursday, May 12, 2016, 03:22 PM - Poetry and Writing

For some reason, I've been giving this a lot of thought lately.

I like Adrienne Rich's answer to a similar question, "Can poetry affect social change?":

"Yes, where poetry is liberative language, connecting the fragments within us, connecting us to others like and unlike ourselves, replenishing our desire. . . . In poetry words can say more than they mean and mean more than they say. In a time of frontal assaults both on language and on human solidarity, poetry can remind us of all we are in danger of losing—disturb us, embolden us out of resignation."

Also Seamus Heaney crediting poetry with offering:

"a less binary and altogether less binding vocabulary"

The arresting and nuanced challenge positivist normative ways of thinking and moving in the world. Food for and voice of our authentic selves. What is more political than being completely in our skins?